


Billy x Goody College AU

by little_ogre



Series: Idiots in Love [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: College AU, Coming Out, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, OCs - Freeform, Roommates, Tropes, omg they were roommates, one use of the word fag, sustained misunderstanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 07:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21370648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_ogre/pseuds/little_ogre
Summary: Billy had initially been worried about having a roommate in college, he’d not shared a room since he was six and shared with his sister, and from what he could remember it had been intensely annoying. He was pretty reserved and needed his own space: and what if his roommate was loud or messy, and never did dishes, or never cleaned or always had people over? It could be a year of hell and Billy was feeling apprehensive, to say the least but Goody, or Goodnight which was his actual name, was, well, Goody was fine.
Relationships: Goodnight Robicheaux/Billy Rocks, Sam Chisolm & Goodnight Robicheaux
Series: Idiots in Love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540855
Comments: 31
Kudos: 34





	1. 1

Billy had initially been worried about having a roommate in college, he’d not shared a room since he was six and shared with his sister, and from what he could remember it had been intensely annoying. He was pretty reserved and needed his own space: and what if his roommate was loud or messy, and never did dishes, or never cleaned or always had people over? It could be a year of hell and Billy was feeling apprehensive, to say the least but Goody, or Goodnight which was his actual name, was, well, Goody was fine. 

A year or two older, his start in college held back for some reason, his side of the room was comfortably lived-in but not dirty or messy. When he cooked he always asked if Billy wanted some, and if he smoked in their room he smoked out through the open window, long pale arms resting on the window sill and his t-shirt riding up in the back when he leaned forward. There was a little rainbow flag tacked to his cork board but Goody made no mention of it and Billy didn't ask. 

He had a hilarious Louisiana accent, and a wide mouth that made him look handsome in some lights and goofy in others.

Goody was fine, really. 

Billy didn’t mind making two cups of coffee in the morning, when Goody rubbed his eyes and sleepily thanked him in rough Cajun French. Or saving him a seat for the lectures they had together so he didn’t have to sit next to anyone who’d ask annoying questions. Or watching films together in one of their beds, laptop between them

So yeah, Goody was fine, there was just one little thing that put Billy on edge. He was unnervingly tactile.

He’d rest a hand on the back of Billy’s chair during lectures, his warm knuckles accidentally brushing against Billy’s back. Sitting together in the library he’d companionably knock their knees together or pat Billy’s arm to get his attention, or anything really. Sometimes it felt as if Goody was _always _touching him, and it made of Billy’s thoughts scatter like a flock of birds in a myriad of directions. He knew if he asked Goody to stop, he would, but that was the problem. He didn’t want Goody to stop. He wanted him to _continue_. He wanted him to never stop, to touch him everywhere. It had made him realise how little anyone touched him outside taekwondo or muay thai, and some days he felt cold and aching and the only thing that could soothe him was Goody’s hands. It made him afraid that someday he would just lose it and straight up beg Goody to touch him all over.

“Would you mind if I had a visitor?” Goody asked, turning his chair away from his laptop. “My friend Sam wants to come up and visit and stay for the weekend?” He was so excited he was practically vibrating in his chair, smile big and beaming on his face and Billy found himself nodding.

“_Parfait_,” Goody smiled at his assent, “You’ll really like Sam, he’s a great guy and he wants to see all sorts of museums, so we won’t be in your way at all.”

Billy still felt a twinge of worry, maybe Sam wouldn’t like him after all, anxiety creeping up his belly and he found himself drifting closer and closer to Goody’s side of the room, wanting to touch but really not sure how to justify it, wanting Goody to reassure him but he didn’t know how to ask. Luckily Goody reached an arm out for him.

“Get in here, Rocks. I want to send a picture to Sam so he knows what ugly mugs he’ll be rooming with.”

“What, no?” Billy said surprised but Goody got a hold of his shoulder and pulled him down and snapped the photo on the webcam, the picture in the end a blurry mash of Billy flailing and pulled into a headlock, his dark head butted close to Goody’s and Goody’s wide smile.

(Billy grumbled and tried his best to suppress the knowledge had been doing martial arts since he was 8, he could have gotten free of that hold if he’d really wanted to).

Sam was tall, with a big smile, broad shoulders and an easy animated manner that made Billy anxiously aware of his own inadequacies, his narrow, boyish frame, the fact he didn’t even need to shave yet and would never be able to charm a room. Sam and Goody made perfect friends, hugging each other warmly, so easy and natural in each other space. Billy had stiffened like a tree every time Goody came within a foot’s distance in the first month they had known each other. Of course Goody would want friends that were similar to him, friendly and bright and not quiet and impassive like Billy. Goody was only friendly with him because he was a nice guy and Billy was his roommate. He had idly entertained the fantasy that Goody genuinely liked him and that they would have been friends even outside of college but meeting Sam quickly took that notion out of him.

Goody and Sam beamed at each other, and quoted poetry in loud voices and touched each other constantly. Billy clenched his jaw and tried to make himself as small as possible on his side of the room.

“We’re heading out to eat,” Goody told him, in between talking a mile a minute to Sam, “D’ you want to come? We’re just going down to the corner for pizza.”

Billy hunched his shoulders and shook his head, he’d only be the awkward third wheel, besides Goody didn’t really want him to come, he was just asking to be polite.

Billy made a fair effort to get into his studies, writing an essay but the words kept swimming in front of his eyes until he gave up and rolled into bed and rolled himself into a burrito in his blanket.

He woke to the clatter of the door and Goody’s bedside light coming on.

“Hush now _chér_, don’t wake Billy,” he heard Goody mutter and then there was the soft noises and bumps of two people settling down for the night.

“Hey Goody,” Sam said, laughing low. “I can’t sleep on this, its flatter than your ass?” 

He was nuding the air mattress they had placed on the floor with his foot, Billy and Goody had borrowed it from a guy in their dorm and pumped it up before Sam came, Goody all the while talking excitedly about stuff Sam had done in high school. It looked depressingly flat and deflated.

“_Merde_,” Goody swore, “It must have had a puncture. We’ll fix it tomorrow, c’mon get in, I’m tired.”Sam made a motion as if to get in at the foot end of the bed and Goody hissed in annoyance.

“Are we really going to sleep tip to tail, what are you ten? I’m not sleeping with your feet in my face.”

Sam got his pillow from the floor and settled in, there was a certain amount of scuffling and rustling and Goody murmured contentedly “See, much better. Spooning like civilised people.”

“Why is it even called spooning anyway?” Sam muttered back, shifting.

“Forking sounds rude,” Goody said and they both laughed quietly, Goody leaning back to tenderly kiss Sam,not on the cheek which might have been acceptable, but on the mouth, square and full before pulling Sam’s arm around him more securely and turning out the light.

Billy felt as if he had swallowed thumbtacks, everything inside him sharp and hurting. He hadn’t understood but they were, they must be…. His throat felt so tight he could barely swallow. He laid awake long listening to Sam and Goody’s breaths.

When he woke in the morning the first thing he saw was the two of them, shoulder to shoulder reading in bed. Goody with his head pillowed on Sam’s arm and Sam holding his book with his other hand.

“Good morning,” Goody said cheerfully when he blinked awake at them. They looked entirely untroubled by their situation, no self conscious untangling or anything. Billy felt like his face was burning. Goody turned on his side to better face Billy, putting the book down and pillowing his head on his arms.

“There is a museum Sam wants to check out and a bookshop in town too. Do you want to come with us? The museum might not be your style but they have really good coffee,” he added hopefully, as if he really wanted Billy along on what was essentially a date. A gay date. Billy swallowed, the thumb-tack feeling back in full force. They looked so comfortable over there, Goody’s blue t-shirt in striking contrast to Sam’s bright red, squished together in the narrow bed.

“No, I’ve got training. And, uh study...things,” he managed and Goody’s face fell a little.

“Oh, but you’re still coming to the party tonight though?” he said.

Their friend Emma and a couple of others had managed to arrange off campus living and rented a house together and had parties about once a month. Billy had started going when Goody had dragged him but he liked them. Emma was cool and her boyfriend Mathew wasn’t too bad either, if you got past that he seemed as bland as a beige wall at first. He had promised he’d be there but now he felt unsure, but he had no plausible reason to get out of it.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure, of course” and Goody smiled, eyes crinkling in delight.

He managed to make his exit pretty quickly after that and spent the rest of the day kicking a sandbag until he felt slightly better about it. 

“Did you talk to him?” he’d heard Sam say in a quiet undertone as he left the room and Goody sighing heavily.

“Sam, what could I possibly say that wouldn’t be awkward?” And Billy struck a hasty retreat before he accidentally heard anything more.

So what if Goody had a hot, manly, charming, handsome boyfriend? _Goody_ was hot, manly, handsome and charming, _of course_ he wouldn’t be single, or lonely, or wanting even a friend. Billy had just been foolish and built something up in his head that wasn’t true. It was fine, they were roommates and that was all.

He had to drag himself to the party, his stomach heavy as lead when he saw the lit up house and heard the music. He reluctantly made his way through it to the kitchen, certain that Goody would be in the living room in the centre of attention of things. With Sam, ugh. 

The first he’d heard when he opened the door was Sam’s hearty open laugh and he slunk away to get a beer as fast as he could.

“Billy!” 

Looking up he saw Goody come barreling towards him, face lit up with his smile. “You came!” he said, clinking his bottle against Billy’s plastic cup.

“Uh, yeah, I said I would, right?”

“But you’ve been so busy, and anyway I wanted to talk to you all day. There was an exhibition on at the museum that I really think you’d enjoy, we should go back and see it someday, uh?”

Billy nodded, a little stunned in the face of this overwhelming enthusiasm and when Goody swung an arm around his shoulder he could feel all resistance running out of him like water- so what if it was pathetic, just following Goody around like a puppy wanting its ears scratched- it had never stopped him before. He let Goody drag him to the sofa and wedge him tight to him, his warmth seeping into Billy’s side, making him feel warm and tingly. Billy was just peering down into his beer letting his thoughts drift and when Goody reached out and put his arm around him he more or less melted into him. He was idly entertaining the idea that what if he and Goody were the ones to end up in the same bed? Because say, some horrible disaster had befallen Billy’s bed and there had been no choice but to share with Goodnight?

And Goody would shuffle around to accommodate him like he did with Sam, the sheets smelling faintly of cigarettes and fabric softener, until they were tightly spooned together, Goody’s fingers laced with his and resting on his sternum, listening to Goody’s soft lilting voice in his ears. That’d be, that’d be.. _fucking great_, his mind supplied fuzzily. Awesome even. He’d be so comfy. And he would shift in the bed, turning around so they were face to face, so close they’d have to tilt their heads to make space between their mouths, Goody’s hand sliding down to rest at his hip, the tip of the thumb just brushing up under Billy’s t-shirt. And Billy would say _something_, so incredibly funny and charming he’d make Goody laugh in that way that scrunched his whole face and then it would trail off in a soft smile.

“You’re my best friend, Billy Rocks,” Goody would say, his eyes warm and fond, and lean over to kiss him, soft and unhurried, his fingers tangling in Billy’s hair and their legs twining together and Goody would turn him on his back and roll on top, his tongue slowly exploring Billy’s mouth, licking deeply and…..

A loud laugh from Josh made Billy startle and look up, suddenly, brutally back in the living room sofa, Goody next to him with his face turned away talking to Sam, and Billy tried to swallow with his dry as the dessert mouth.

Oh. _Oh_. He sneaked a sideways glance at Goody, his gaze getting stuck on his mouth, soft and bitten pink… Oh, he was so, _so fucked_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a one-shot and was never meant to be longer than this first chapter. AND NOW LOOK AT IT - it has anxiety that's what.
> 
> Thank you to everyone on tumblr who has been so encouraging and lovely about this hot mess. You know who you are, and quite frankly, you should probably be ashamed of yourselves.


	2. Chapter 2

And because Billy is utterly fucked anyway, and had never had that good self preservation skills, he spent the rest of the party in the kitchen with Josh, Vasquez, a bottle of tequila and a whole host of bad decisions.

He felt so shell shocked it took a while before he even noticed the alcohol and by then he was practically asleep in a bathtub with Vasquez next to him very earnestly telling him that his hair is pretty. And like? Billy knows his hair is pretty? He _also_ thinks his hair is very pretty, and Vasquez is kind of pretty too, and the way that his t-shirt fitted snug around his bicep is very enticing and his eyes are a sort of melting brown which are different from Goody’s eyes, which Billy is _resolutely _not thinking about, and suddenly Vas’s face was kind of close and coming closer and their noses are kind of brushing and then Sam opened the door to the bathroom. 

There is a long moment where he just stares at them, Vasquez sitting on the floor clutching a bottle and Billy lying in the tub, faces way too close, and then Vasquez breaks out in a brilliant grin. 

“Sam! Come in here, we're talking about Billy’s hair. ‘S very pretty. Yours also very pretty.” 

Billy thinks moodily that he doesn't find Sam’s hair very pretty at all. 

“Gentlemen,” Sam says, “any chance of using the facilities for their intended purpose?”

Billy and Vas go back to staring at each other because none of that made any sense and then Billy’s brain bursts into action. It’s brilliant that way.

“Pee! He needs to pee!” he exclaims, delighted with having figured it out. “Only he can't because I'm in the tub!” He feels very proud of himself. 

“Goody!” Sam hollers down the corridor, “I've found your roommate, I think you’d better come fish him out.” 

And no no no, Sam can't be calling Goody, Billy does _not_ want to see Goody at all right now, but here he comes and Billy can only look at his socked feet too afraid that if he looks up everything he’s just realized will be visible on his face. 

They go back to the dorm with Billy escorted between Sam and Goody, feeling very much like a kid being taken home from a birthday party in disgrace. And isn’t that just perfect, not only does Goody have a tall, hot, manly boyfriend, who filled out his shirts properly, and had a deep voice, and probably drove with his hands at 10 and 2 like a dad, but he also literally had to walk Billy home, like he was a child.

However, it’s impossible to dislike Sam. He has a warm laugh and, Billy can just tell, an even warmer heart, and since he, unlike Goody, is not completely useless there is coffee and painkillers for Billy the moment he wakes up, even if it wrenches his heart to see Sam peel out of Goodys bed to get them.

Sam is also an inexhaustible treasure trove for outrageous shit on Goody.

“Did you tell him about Hamlet?” he yells to Goodnight, who’s in their little kitchenette scrambling eggs, and in spite of the painkillers it makes Billy wince.

“Of course not!” Goody yells back. “And neither will you!”

Sam just smiles at Billy and rolls the chair closer.

“Let me tell you aaaaalllll about Hamlet,” he says, slinging an arm conspiratorially around Billy’s shoulder.

“Will you please not?” Goody says, sounding incredibly pained.

Turns out that Goodnight and Sam were together in a high school production Hamlet, and if Goodnight can be a pretentious twat now, with his French _Nouvelle Vague_ films and spontaneous quotations of David Foster Wallace and Gertrude Stein, apparently his teenage self had been much, _much_ worse.

“Goody here really, _really _wanted to be a Serious Actor.” Sam says. “He’d read all about the “Stanislavski system” was all the time getting into fights with Mrs Henson about “the art of experiencing” and the inner psycho-drama of Hamlet.”

“You’re only jealous because _I_ got the role and_ you_ had to be second fiddle Horatio,” Goody yells from the kitchen, rattling the pans.

“Only because you shamelessly, shamelessly I say, used your audition to roll all over the stage pretending to die until your shirt came undone and inflamed Lydia Krukowski with unholy lust.” Sam yells right back. Billy really wants to know more but he also really wants them to talk at a more reasonable volume. “She was Ophelia,” Sam adds in an aside to Billy, who feels a twinge of sympathy. He knows all about being inflamed with unholy lust for Goodnight.

“At least I _started_ with audition with my clothes on! _You_ came to yours with your shirt undone to the navel, you hussy. And let me remind you, it was not my pants that Lydia Krukowski wanted to get into.”

“Whenever somebody goofed off he’d get so upset smoke would come out of his ears!” Sam continues, gesticulating. “So, the props department, for unknown reasons, made this huge fish prop and it became a running joke to throw it on stage during rehearsals to make the actors crack up, and _he_ -” Sam gestured towards the kitchenette, “ - did not crack up once. Not once! Sense of humor surgically removed! So the props guys, who made the fish, got really cheesed off, everyone else had laughed, so for the final performance they decided to get him back and _wham!_ In the middle of the famous soliloquy they threw the fish on stage!”

Billy snorted and Sam waved an indignant arm. “Only Montgomery Cliff here didn’t as much as twitch, he caught the fish like it was a baby,” Sam made a cradle with his arms against his chest. “_And tossed it right back_!” 

Sam broke out in a big laugh and Billy couldn’t help it, but laughed too.

“Nobody heard a word of the rest of it.” Goody says, having emerged from the kitchen while Sam was talking, leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed. “We had to halt the production for 20 minutes because the _audience_ couldn’t stop laughing.” Billy can tell he’s trying very hard to sound displeased but there is a small smile was pulling the corner of his mouth.

“Nobody wrote a word in his yearbook, they all just drew fishes,” Sam chortles, wiping tears from his eyes and Goody smiles ruefully and fixes Billy with his blue- grey eyes.

“No, I’m not Prince Hamlet,” he says. “Nor was meant to be, am an attendant lord, one that will do, To swell a progress, start a scene or two,” his voice melting in Billy’s ears like dark honey, the sweet Louisiana drawl stretching the syllables and pulling in him helplessly. “Advise the prince, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use. Politic, cautious and meticulous, Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous. Almost, at times, the Fool.”

Goody’s voice dies away softly and Billy feels like he can’t breathe, unable to look away from Goody’s face, it feels like something huge and massive is caught in his chest because how can everybody not love Goody when Billy right now, in this moment, feels like his heart is ready to burst like an over-ripe and pulpy fruit and wash out of him in a wave of ardent longing?

And then Sam breaks the moment by slapping Goody hard on his bony hip.

“You incorrigible old ham!” he says and then turns to Billy with a positively wicked grin. 

“Do you want to see the pictures?”

He is sort of best friends with Sam after that, the short grainy footage of Goody clutching a huge papier maché trout like its his baby making Billy laugh so hard he falls out of his chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billy is really in for a penny, in for a pound here, so he’s just realised he might have feelings for his roommate? Time to get drunk and make out with a guy in a bathtub then, why sit around and have a personal identity crisis when there are regrettable decisions to be made?
> 
> Guys, Lydia Krukowski is OK, she got over it. She was Sam’s date to senior prom.
> 
> Sam’s description of young Goody here is based on an interview with Ethan Hawke where he talks about himself on the set of Dead Poets Society. It seemed apt.The gigantic fish comes from a production of Hamlet mys sister told me about when at random intervals a huge prop fish was thrown onto the stage?
> 
> Goodnight is quoting the Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot. Its a little basic for Goodnight but that verse is such an Older Goodnight poem that it really galls me I can’t get it into Mag7 period fic.
> 
> Also, If Goodnight is from Louisiana and his family is in Baton Rouge, but Sam is not from Louisiana where the hell did they to to high school? Asking for a friend….


	3. Chapter 3

Billy texted his sister Jujin three days later, in between lectures in the middle of campus. He just gritted his teeth and did it, his thumb hitting the send button with unnecessary force.

“I think I might be gay.” 

Which was short and sweet, and to the point and he then watched in terrified anxiety the three little dots of her typing appear and disappear for what was probably the longest minute of his life.

“Is this about you roomate?”

Even by text his sister managed to make him blush like a tomato and feel so incredibly busted. He thought he had talked about Goody a normal amount. A normal, heterosexual, not-crush-having amount. But apparently not. He suppressed the knee jerk reaction of denying it. That would sort of defeat the whole point. 

“Maybe?” He conceded, legs feeling like jelly. His phone was silent for a long while before it beeped.

“So you think you might have a crush on him?” 

“Yeah? But Idk ykno? I could just really like him? Sometimes with new friends its like that?”

Because sometimes it was, getting a new friend could be a headlong rush and feel like an infatuation, just the sheer joy of finding somebody else whose brain worked in the same way, or had similar interests and there was suddenly so much to talk about and the more you talked the more there was to talk about. And maybe, _possibly _that's what it is with Goody? Maybe all the butterflies in his stomach and his complete inability to breathe normally when Goody’s hands brushed his shoulder was just friendship feelings? A deep intellectual appreciation and joy of finding a new person to click with? It _was_ possible. 

“Hm, see what u mean.” His sister texted back. “U think he's funny and want to talk to him all the time?”

“Yeah I do, but you and Liv are the same?” Liv, his sister’s best friend, and Jujin had at one point been practically joined at the hip.

“Not the same, Liv is clearly my wife,” the phone buzzed, and then a bride emoji. “But I guss we’re not having sex.” she continued. “Although at this point we might as well...”

“dont want to know” 

“So I guess the difference is, do u totally want to rail him?”

Billy stared at the message for a second and the spat coffee all over himself. His sister picked up on the first ring, laughing high and loud like a fox.

“You can not just say things like that! I do not want to -” Billy lowered his voice and looked over his shoulder before he hissed “- _rail him,_” into the phone. “Nobody is doing that to anyone!”

“I was being direct, to the heart of the matter! I can't help that you're such a prude!”

“I'm_ no_t a prude, I'm your big brother and we are never talking about this again!”

“Haha! That means you _do_ want to nail him!”

“It doesn't mean anything! It just means that I don't want to talk about this with you, you’re my baby sister!”

“_You_ brought it up!”

“And I'm already regretting it, forget I said anything.” 

“You are hopeless. I’m hanging up now.”

Five minutes later, when Billy had sunk down into a seat at the back of the lecture hall to calm his flaming face, his phone buzzed again. “It doesn't matter if you think your gay, il always love you”, followed by three pink hearts in a row. If anybody asked why Billy was looking like he might cry in Introduction to Linguistics, he'd be hard pressed to answer.

At two in the morning Billy gave up any pretended of trying to sleep and turned on his lamp, looking over at Goody’s bed. He was a gorgeous, a long limbed mess on the bed, one arm hanging off the side and his head tipped back, exposing the column of his throat. Billy watched him and imagined tiptoeing over there and carefully nudging his legs apart, nuzzling and breathing over the bulge in his boxers until it tented and Goody woke, sleep creases on his face and his mouth slack with desire…

Billy sighed deeply and reached for his phone. 

“Ok, so I do want to rail him” he wrote and three seconds later it buzzed.

“Congrats to being gay, your club card is in the mail. Now let me fucking sleep”

Since starting college, in a fit of equal measures rebellion and laziness, Billy had been letting his hair grow, and now was shaggy and long enough to get into his eyes and it was driving him crazy. It was forever hanging down and tickling his face and getting in the way and no matter how many times he swept it back, it always fell forwards again.

It was especially annoying now, way later than it should be and he was squinting against his screen fighting with getting his conclusion nailed down, deleting two words for every new he managed to type and the hair getting into his eyes, and itching his nose and tickling across his forehead and it was just so_ frustrating_…

“Billy, _arretez!_” Goddy snapped. “Quit fucking fussing with your hair. It’s not going to help,”

Billy looked up startled and saw Goody, equally hunched over his desk, looking as annoyed as he’d ever seen him. He’d never showed a lick of bad temper previously and then Billy realised it was late and they were probably equally stressed. He blew the hair out of his eyes, resisting the urge to pick a fight, or pointing out that Goody had been continuously sniffling the last half hour, if they wanted to get into annoying personal habits, could he just blow his damn nose already?

“Whatever,” he murmured sullenly and turned his attention back to the document, which was still resisting any sort of sense. Five minutes later he slapped his hair away from his face with another annoyed noise and Goody banged his hands on the desk and pushed his chair away, getting up.

Billy t_hought_ about saying sorry, but he really wasn’t feeling it, if it was so annoying Goody could go and study in the library. He scowled at the screen, so intensely that the digital print seemed to flicker. 

“Hold still,” Goody said, one hand descending on Billy’s shoulder and the other gently stroking across his forehead.

“Wha..?” Billy said, looking up, into Goody’s face who was standing behind his chair, close enough that the back of Billy’s was brushing against his stomach (against his firm, lean, warm stomach his treacherous mind supplied), Goody who was wrinkling his nose in concentration and gently, gently stroking his hands through Billy’s hair, pulling it away from his face. When he was little his mom used to stroke his hair when he went to bed but as far as he could remember nobody else had done that to him. Goody’s blunt nails was scratching his scalp a little as he was carefully cardning through the hair. It was an odd sensation, sending tendrils of feeling all down Billy’s spine and somehow making him nearly cross-eyed, his eyelids strangely heavy.

“What, what are you doing?” he said, barely getting the words in just before a head splitting yawn. The shivers were so strong he had to roll his shoulder, and Goody scratched a bit more, nearly making him bend in half with the strange tickling pleasure sensation, not knowing if he wanted more of it or if he wanted it to stop immediately. Even his tongue felt like it was twitching with every gentle pass of Goody’s hand through his hair.

“There you go,” Goody said with a small smile and released him and Billy’s hand flew to his head. His hair hand been pulled back and secured in a little stump on the top of his head.

“I solved your problem for you, had a padookie in my backpack so I thought I’d just put your hair back.” Goody said with a trace on apologetic smile. “Get them out of your eyes.”

“I look like a palm tree,” he said sourly and the immediate twitch of Goody’s mouth told him he wasn’t entirely wrong about that.

“I ain’t never seen anybody do that before” Goody said, a sly calculating look in his eye and Billy glared at him.

“Do what?” he asked and Goodnight smiled widely and scratched Billy at the crown of his head making his whole body jack-knife together, eyes nearly rolling back into his head. It was as if his body had previously been calibrating, deciding how to process this new sensation, and now booted it firmly into the pleasure camp. He could feel his jaw falling open and the most embarrassing little grunt escaping his lips but it just felt _too damn good_ to care. Without really knowing how it had happened he found himself half sprawled on top of the desk, limp las a noodle and nearly panting, forehead pillowed on his arms, trying not to drool and making noises he’d previously not even _known_ he could make. Even before Billy had discovered his pathetic crush on Goody he had been worried that he’d one day break and just ask him to be touched all over and he knew that this was now, this was the moment, his hands already fisting into his t-shirt so he could peel it off and turn around it the chair and beg Goody to please, please,_please_, everywhere, _everything_ now, please, when he remembered Sam. It cut like ice through the hazy-pleasure feeling, Sam, who cared enough to call most evenings, Goody silently laughing on the phone, talking in a quiet murmur to not disturb Billy, Sam who was friends with Billy now too, and asked him about martial arts and sent him links to songs he might like and pictures of his big goofy golden retriever. Billy couldn’t do this to Sam. He managed to get one hand over his head to bat Goody’s hand away.

“Hey, knock it off,” he managed, mouth still muffled against his arm, trying not to think about what it would be like if it was Goody’s skin his mouth brushed over, instead of his own.

“You sure, _chér_?” Goody answered him, sounding very smug, “You seemed to enjoy it.”

“Yeah I’m sure,” Billy said, sitting up, rubbing his face and neck trying to erase the shivery trace of Goody’s hands, smoothing down his hair. Goody was still smiling, his hands restlessly plucking at the hem of his shirt.

“Would you,” he said, and stopped and shook his head, sitting down by his desk again, and Billy looked at his own screen and tried to remember what he had been trying to write before Goody has exposed a whole new erogenous zone for him, in addition to a brand new sexual orientation. The room was quiet for a while before Goody cleared his throat.

“Would you like to go for coffee? With me?” he said in a rush, hands gripping the edge of his desk. His face was red and for some reason Billy couldn’t fathom, he looked nervous.

“Yeah, sure,” Billy said easily, whatever he had tried to write was gone anyway. “I could use a break. It’s a bit late for coffee though, I might have tea.” He pushed his chair away and stood, rummaging for sweater and when he looked over at Goody he was staring at Billy with his mouth half open.

“No, I meant..” he started and broke off, tongue coming out to wet his lips before he broke out in a reluctant smile. “Yeah, of course,yeah a break, sure. Never too late for coffee.”

When Billy finally got his shoes on and came out in the chilly evening Goody was standing outside their door, hands clapped over his eyes and swearing in low French.

“Are you all right?” Billy asked bemused and Goody looked up startled and gave him a weak smile.

“Fantastic, terrific, yeah, everything’s great yeah,” he said, nodding frantically. His face was still pretty red.

Billy huffed a laugh and clapped him lightly on the shoulder before they set course towards the campus coffee shop, and after a couple of steps, Goody looked much more natural and started telling Billy about his latest lecture about Homer and color theory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did Billy just miss Goodnight asking him on a date? Yes, yes he did. Is this the first time this has happened? No, no its not.
> 
> Goodnight is referring to the different theories about color description in Homer’s poetry, the most notable example being the sea being described as red, with the epithet “the wine-dark Sea” and absence of the colour blue in descriptions. Some theories say the Greeks were color blind and others that algae in the Aegean sea made it look red. Goodnight is absolutely studying the Classics.
> 
> Horne hasn’t made an appearance yet but he is clearly the eccentric Religious studies professor who is also the founder of the college wilderness social club.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for warnings regarding coming out scenes.

Something felt off the moment he came home. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, something about how his mother came to pick him up from the bus station, and immediately took his face between her hands and declared that he looked too thin (not only was this unusual for her, but even though it was a while ago since competed seriously Billy was still used to keeping an eye on his weight, and he knew he hasn’t gained or lost an ounce). It got a little weirder at dinner where both of his parents were watching him eat like hawks and his sister was hiding her face in her plate. His dad had cooked celebration food, galbi ssam and little plates of various banchan, all Billy’s favourites and when he tucked into his second portion something in the room relaxed and his mom and dad smiled a little at each other. 

Billy’s family might be a little distant, not much for physical contact and his mother has never said she loved him, and he can’t remember his dad kissing him, even when he was little, and he knew that they were a little disappointed when he went to college to study engineering, instead of medicine. They make up for it in different ways though, and Billy had always known that his mother cared because she piled his and his sister’s beds high with pillows, as if by sheer force of bedding she can articulate what she can’t say. This time when he opened the door to his room, his bed was so full of pillows it was a struggle to recognize it as a flat surface. 

Something was definitely up.

He kicked most of the pillows to the floor and then dug to the very bottom of his backpack after the rumpled slip of fabric that was Goodnight’s t-shirt, snagged off the floor of their room at the absolute last minute. It smelled of him, of cigarettes and his soap and a little like their room. It felt pathetic but also defiant, a tangible marker that he had come back from college different and he buried his face in it and held on tight, for once letting himself imagine, without feeling guilty about it, that it was Goodnight’s back pressed close to his chest and that he would be allowed to bury his nose in his hair and hold on.

The Christmas period was pretty quiet, his family celebrate but don’t make too much of a fuss about it. His mom and dad worked the 24th and Billy mostly divided his time between studying, the gym and helping his mother cook christmas food when she comes home from work. He and Jujin baked about a bazillion christmas cookies as presents for various teachers, co-workers and people on their street. Billy spent a lot of time with his _halmonee_, helping her with shopping and cleaning. Jujin was meant to help too but school wasn’t out yet so she mostly sat by the kitchen table studying and Billy did the running around. Its familiar, when Billy was younger they always went to Halmi after school while their parents worked. 

Whatever was weird with his parents seems to have relaxed a little but Jujin had her shoulders permanently hiked to her shoulders and still won’t look him in the eyes. He tried to talk to her but she avoids him, citing school and homework. He doesn’t want it to be because of what he told her about Goody but he suspects that it is, with a cold sinking feeling inside and it made him reluctant to probe further.

Strangely enough he talked a lot with Goody on the phone. There was radio silence for a couple of days, not a message or email or anything, and then Goody called, sounding flustered.

“I was going to give you a break actually, ahem, you know. Sam said that when he came home from college the first year he didn’t even want to pretend his roommate existed! So uh, I _was_ going to give you some breathing space.”

“Yeah?” Billy said, a little perplexed, his heart was beating a little faster just from hearing Goody’s voice, and with the phone right next to his ear it was easy to imagine that they were close and intimate. “So why are you calling then?” Billy was going through the required reading list for his next course, phone squashed between his ear and shoulder and he could hear Goodnight floundering on the other end.

“Uh,eh, just you know, I,ahem, well, I..I missed you, _ce vrai_,” he said sheepishly and warmth spread through Billy, unable to hold back the smile that’s spreading all over his face. Goody can’t see him anyway so it doesn’t matter. He thought he could hear somebody groan in the background.

“Is that Sam?” he asked, the warmth dimming a little but not much, it felt better, cleaner somehow, that Goody can say that he missed him in front of his boyfriend. It meant that Goody and Billy were real friends, even if it confirmed that there is nothing else going on (no matter how it feels sometimes in early mornings when they share coffee, Billy’s hiccoughing laughter at Goody’s sleepy face, or late night studying and Goody makes him pillbug over his keyboard by scratching his hair). When Billy first surprised himself by imagining kissing Goody, he had also really, really wanted to be his friend, the sort that stuck around outside of college, and if that is what he can get, then he’ll take it. He wanted to be Goody’s friend (Billy jealously might want to be Goody’s _best_ friend, his only friend, his friend with kissing privileges, but he’s also pragmatic, so he'll take whatever he can get really).

“Yeah,” Goody responded, sounding chagrined, “he uh, wants to go back to playing Mario cart.” Billy tried very hard not to imagine what that was code for and why Sam was impatient to get back to it. Billy may or may not have imagined Goody and Sam together so much that by now he had developed certain very weird responses to Sam. Like boner-by-association responses. 

“Say hi to him for me,“ he said and Goody laughed.

“He says hi back. But can I call you later, yeah?”

After that they were on the phone nearly every day, Goody was the one to call most often (probably because Billy would sit and stare at his phone, willing it to buzz but too proud to reach out and dial himself), with a constant stream of text messages. If it weren't for his physical absence its nearly like they were in their room again. Goody face timed on Christmas eve, late, looking absolutely frazzled. 

“‘M a little drunk,” he confessed, rubbing his face. “M asshole uncle got me drunk on eggnog, which is a vile thing to do do a body, Billy.”

On the little screen of Billy’s phone he was looking flushed, with disheveled hair and he was wrestling himself out of a suit and tie, pulling uselessly at the knot, obviously too tired to make the effort to untie it properly. Billy thought that if they were back at college he could do it for him. It would make sense then, for Billy to help him. For Billy to be sober and slowly lead Goodnight through the motions of getting his suit off and drinking water and undoing his tie and cufflinks when his own fingers were clumsy and unwilling. 

“You family Christmas get together is a black tie event?” he said instead, raising his eyebrows and Goody laughed. 

“Whatchu talking about? This was just an intimate little family gathering, only the immediate extended family of fucking fifty people or so, for informal pre-christmas drinks. Pillars of Baton Rouge society every one of them.”

_Billy’s_ pre-christmas celebration had been the annual round robin tournament at the gym, where first prize was the traditional chocolate santa and a protein shake. He had been forced to tap out in his fourth fight, when he stupidly got caught in a triangle lock because he got distracted wondering if he would get horny wrestling, now that he had figured out that he liked guys (too? Liked guys only? Billy was still not sure). He had to conclude though, getting painfully choked out, that if it having some guys legs wrapped around his neck getting his face pressed into a crotch hadn’t made him horny before, it probably wouldn’t now. Besides, he’s seen each of these guys covered in sweat, spit on the floor, picking their noses and trying to smear each other with snot and nosebleeds so, in spite of some of them having abs like cheese graters, the romance had pretty much worn off at this stage. 

More to the point, nobody has been wearing a tie to any of Billy’s family’s Christmas gatherings, except his in-law cousin Ken, who probably wears one to sleep.

“Was it fun?” he asked, idly cracking his neck back and forth. It’s late and he’s pretty tired. Jujin will probably wake him up at stupid o’clock because its Christmas morning tomorrow.

“My cousins and second cousins are pretty fun. And my grandma is always a hoot, like a 95 year old Cajun lady pickled in gin, but the rest have pretty much atrophied. Is that…” Goody squinted at the camera. “Is that a _hickey?_” he asked, voice rising.

“Is what a hickey?” Billy asked confused.

“That on your neck?” Goody said, sounding half choked and Billy rubbed a hand over his collarbones, finding a sore spot. 

“Nah, its from the dojo. I got caught in a triangle lock, that’s, uh, when you get choked with the thighs. 

“With the thighs?” Goody said weakly and Billy nodded.

“Yeah its called triangle because you sort of make a triangle with your legs and you choke somebody out with their head between your legs and you bend one knee and lock it up with your foot under the other, you know?” Billy tried to make a vague approximation with his arms and Goody nodded slowly.

“You had your head in between somebody’s legs, and got choked by their thighs? Goody repeated, sounding a little dazed. “Maybe I should have gotten into wrestling after all.”

Billy snorted. “Its less fun than it sounds. I can show you when we get back,” he said, without thinking and watches as even over the pretty shitty connection Goody's face turned absolutely scarlet. His ears were glowing. 

“I’ll take you word,” said faintly and Billy wanted to die, because, did he just offer to mash Goody's face into his crotch? He thinks he did. There is no rescuing something like that. 

They stared awkwardly at each other for a moment. And then Goody opened his mouth to say “uh, about that...,” and Billy nearly choked on his own tongue because, what? About you mashing my face into your crotch? About wrestling? About touching each other inappropriately with very little clothes on? Would that be something Goody might be interested in? With Billy?

Goody didn't get to say about what because Billy's mom knocked on his door, poking her head in. She was in sleepwear and a dressing gown, but she still had her glasses on. 

“I heard voices,” she said, frowning curiously at him. “Are you on the phone? It's very late.”

“Ah, um yeah” Billy said, sitting up, “I'm talking to Goody, uh my roommate at college?”

He might have mentioned Goodnight. Once or twice. His mother’s frown deepened.

“Don’t stay up too late,” she said and ducks out. 

“That was my mom, Grace,” Billy said sheepishly and Goody smiled, he's looking loose and like he's getting a little fuzzy. 

“She's right thought, we should hang up. I just called to say Merry Christmas, or you know, Happy Holidays.” He added the last as a correction, as if he wanted to make sure he gives Billy the absolute correct seasonal greeting. It was very charming. 

Billy smiled back, “Merry Holidays,” he said, like an i_diot_, and then there was a long moment when neither of them hung up, just smiled stupidly at each other over the staticky connection before Goody cleared his throat and tapped the screen. 

Christmas passed and it was in that liminal space between Christmas and New Years, spent in pyjamas and eating too much food, that Jujin knocked on his door. 

She practically crept in to sit at the foot of the bed. She was wearing red and white reindeer pyjama bottoms and wooly socks and kept pulling at the sleeves of her sweater. Now that Billy could actually see her he can see that she looks terrible, hollow-eyed like she hasn't been sleeping. 

“Billy,I have to… I have to tell you something.” She looked up quickly through a curtain of hair and then just as quickly back down again. “I didn't mean to, but I might, I might, have told mom about you and Goodnight.”

The shock was instantaneous, like the lurching drop of pressure in an aeroplane, it feels like all of the blood in his veins have turned into liquid ice. 

“What?”

“They have been on me all of this term about quitting theatre. Saying that it was taking too much time away from my studies and next year is my Senior year and we'd been having this long discussion and I got really mad, about how I couldn't even have one thing where as you were in college and...wanted to,um, had fallen in love with a guy, and they like, don't even call you.”

“Did you say that?” Billy thought he might vomit it feels so bad. 

“I, I said something else,” Jujin said and started crying, “I said something really bad.” Tears were leaking out of her eyes and she was sobbing in little gasps, strangled and hitching. Billy came over to sit next to her on the bed and put his arm around her mutely. He could feel her ribcage expanding and contracting like a race horse’s. 

“I said: why can't I even have theatre when you don't even care that Billy wants to fucking raw his rooomate?” Jujin said finally, adding with an anguished wail. “How could I say something like that?” 

“And what did mom say?” Billy couldn’t actually feel his legs, he was in such a panic. 

“Nothing,she didn't say anything, and I stormed off to rehearsal and mom picked me up afterwards and we had a long talk about respectful language in the car. Provided I do well in the next exams I can stick with theatre.” She rubbed her nose. 

Billy has had the same fights with his parents about martial arts and med school. He knew that when it comes down to it, they really only want their kids to be healthy and happy. It's just that in their eyes true happiness is being a doctor and making $10,700 a month. And he gets that, he really did, he gets they only want their kids to do better, to not have to scrape and work two jobs to get by and that when you come to a new country you have to be better than anyone already there. He would understand it a little better if it also wasn't about getting one up on Mrs Park at the next church potluck. Her kids are only dentists and she talks about them as if they were curing cancer at the very least. 

“It's ok, it's going to be ok,” he told Jujin, because she was still crying, and she’s his little sister and what else could he say? He knows she didn’t mean it, even if that matters little now.

“I'm so sorry!” she wailed and he folded her up and let her cry it out. He had no idea what’s going to happen next. He had no idea what is parents thought about gay people. It's never been discussed. If they freak out, how bad will it be? Can he get through college without his parents financial support? Where will he live in the breaks? Can he still be in contact with Jujin? Why haven’t they said anything about it? All sorts of worst case scenarios were tumbling through his head, increasingly disastrous. 

Jujin fell into uneasy sleep after crying herself out and Billy bundled her up on the bed with fifteen of his mothers best “I love you but it would physically hurt me to tell you so” pillows, throwing random items into his gym bag as fast as he could. 

The gym first. He knew he could spend the night at the back and tomorrow he has enough for a bus back to college. This term is paid for so he will at least have that. He has to get a job, he thought he should have one but his mother said for the first year he should just focus on his studies, they had enough for him to get by (as a consequence Billy wa one of the most frugal students on campus, no way he's spending his parents savings). He threw his clothes into his gym bag without really seeing them, his heart beating fast, fast, fast in his ears. Possibly the student union could help? He's on a scholarship but it's not a full ride. His breath was coming in quick little pants as he opened the door and quietly sneaking down the stairs. 

His parents were just there, sitting in the living room as if they had been waiting for him. He got halfway down the stairs before it creaked and his mother looked up. 

“Billy? Could you come here a minute? Your dad and I want a word with you.

They were sitting in the living room, looking like they always did. Byung-jun was sitting with his e-reader, Grace with a book, the radio on low on the korean radio station, the way he has seen them sit for most of his life, until now comforting and familiar. Billy sat down in one of the chairs, clumsily, his legs cutting out from underneath him. He doesn't want this to happen. 

His mother looked up at him, serious through her thick-rimmed glasses, before she began to talk.

“Billy, your father and I, we understand that college can be an exciting time, where you meet a lot of new people with new ideas, and all of that can be very… very seductive. And in a way it can be positive too, to be exposed to things outside of your home and family, to get to try new versions of yourself, but in those situations it can be very easy to be carried away.”

He can’t breathe, his heart beating so hard it felt like it has crawled up to the back of his throat.

She continued, slow but inevitable “And this boy, Goodnight, well it’s obvious that you think the world of him but….”

His throat closes up so violently that he can’t get even a breath in but his mother continued, in her serious dogged manner, the same way she talked in the car going home from competitions. Understanding, but ultimately firm.

“You have to understand that we only want what is best for you, and I’ve been talking a little to Mrs Kim’s daughter, she’s a dietist you know, and she helped us when Jujin was little, and she doesn’t think it’s a good idea either.”

Billy got a little derailed with that left turn, Mrs Kim’s daughter being the often cited household oracle since she helped them sort out Jujin’s lactose intolerance. Every time Billy or Jujin wanted any type of food it had gone in front of the court that was Mrs Kim’s daughter. The idea that they had discussed Billy with her is bizarre but maybe it means they’ve talked about it with the whole church? Maybe they will all come and tell him he will be cured if he only lets Jesus into his heart?

“And with all the training you do, and I know we might have been more supportive of that in the past but it does really seem to have helped you and taught you a lot of positive skills, and that you’ve kept it up in college, we are just worried that you won’t get enough protein, so your father and I just dont think being a raw food vegan is a good idea for you, and going forward it's not something we can really support.”

“A what?” Billy asked, too stunned to even understand what was happening.

“Well, Jujin said you wanted to go raw with some boy at your college? I did some googling and it really doesn’t seem like a good idea. Maybe you could try being vegetarian first, if it’s really important to you, but not eating cooked food at all, and no eggs or fish? You still haven't finished growing. Your body needs nutrients that can only be broken down after cooking, and only eating uncooked vegetables. And it puts a lot of strain on your father and me, preparing two sets of meals when you are home here…”

Billy can’t help it. He started to laugh, it was ugly and hysteric, tearing its way out of his chest, wet and bubbling until it broke and he started to sob, hands pressed over his face.

“Billy?” his mom said and his dad was finally putting away the e-reader to stare at his son.

“That wasn’t what she meant,” Billy started and had to stop, just trying to get his breath back under control. “I’m gay, thats what she meant. I’m gay.”

His parents stared at him, his mom actually with her mouth hanging open in surprise.

“What about that? Is that something you “can support going forward”?” Billy said and scrubbed his hand over his face, wiping at tears and snot. 

“What does that mean?” his dad asked. 

“It means I like guys,” Billy sniffed. “That I'm a fag.” The word cut his mouth like glass.

It was absolutely quiet for a moment. 

“Are you sure?” Grace asked, her voice sounding funny. “You're still very young and sometimes we think one thing but…”

And Billy really hadn’t been sure up until now, until he heard the question and all the emotions that have been rattling around shook into place and realigns the world. He's sure. It's guys, from that older boy at Judo whom he idolised when he was little, to Goodnight, only guys. It's all he could do to nod his head , hands clasped over his face, unable to meet their eyes. 

“Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sorry ma, but I'm sure. I like boys.”

Without a word Billy's dad abruptly stood up from the sofa and headed for the kitchen. 

“Yeobo?” Grace shouted after him, sounding absolutely terrified. They both look at each other, his mom's eyes were big and round like pennies, as they heard him opening the cleaning cupboard where his parents kept every commercial leaflet ever crammed under their door, “in case it comes in handy”, like fucking _lunatics_, and then he closed the door again, so sharply the window rattled and stomped back into the living room again. Billy's moms was white-faced.

“Byung-jun?” she said softly and Billy's dad thumped something down on the coffee table. It was a table top decoration in the shape of a small flag stand, with two flags, the Korean flag and the rainbow pride flag. Right next to it he slapped down at least two Pflag leaflets and then sat down on the sofa with an air of finality. 

“Where’s that from?” Billy asked.

“You are our son. Our legacy,” he said pointing at Billy. 

“Can we talk about this before you make any rash…” his mother tried to cut in but his dad just moves on. 

“We are a family. We don't get to decide which part of family we keep and which one we throw away. We can't say “our son is gay” so suddenly we don't support him anymore, that's not how it works.”

Billy was so busy staring he forgets about crying. 

“Really?” he blurted, the words wet. “When I wanted to study engineering I had to go on a bloody campaign, and when Jujin wanted to cut her hair you argued for weeks but this? This you are suddenly ok with?” 

His father paused before he answered. “This is not really for us to be ok with is it?” Billy stared in confusion, nothing about this was making sense. “Being a parent is not what I thought it would be but it still keeps on going. This is _your_ life, I can’t…”

“But will you be OK with this? Will you support me?”

“What are you asking for when doesn’t really matter how I feel about it? If we say no to this, will you stop being gay? No, I didn’t think so.” he said when Billy shook his head.

“But you are my parents, I want you to…” 

“You’re not asking for our permission so what does it matter what we say?”

“I think what your dad is trying to say,” his mom cut in gently “is that when we argue with you we are trying to protect you from making bad choices but something like this...you didn't choose to be this.”

It hurt more than it should. He knew she meant it kindly but it cuts him down to the bone. 

“Because nobody would choose to be like this? Nobody would _choose _to be abnormal?”

He saw realisation cross her face and she shook her head in denial.

“No, no, of course not. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant…” she trailed off helplessly and Billy is suddenly just very tired. 

“When you were born,” his dad said. “When you were born, you were the size of a loaf and you screamed all the time. I was working two jobs and all I wanted to do was sleep. And you were screaming in the night and your mom had been up with you three times already and we were arguing and when I got to work, I told my co-worker and he said: So this isn’t what you thought it would be. What are you going to do, return the kid?”

Billy and Grace actually shared a nonplussed look, it seems she knows as little as Billy where this is going.

“So if it was difficult then, we are not going to give up now. Just one day at a time and we’ll figure it out. Nothing has changed really, it's just that we know about it now.”

It’s not a ringing endorsement but he’ll take it. It’s not a no.

Billy was flat on his bed, for once not having kicked all the pillows to the floor, with a cold cloth over his swollen eyes, feeling as limp and wrung out as the rag. His parents were downstairs watching “It’s a wonderful life” with Jujin forcibly wedged in between them, Billy had begged off with a headache. Even his usually PDA resistant parents seemed somewhat frail and clingy and his mom had actually been surreptitiously stroking his little sister’s hair when he headed upstairs. He guessed she would be the Good Child now. 

The door clicked open and the bed dipped next to him.

“Escaped at last?” he said, lifting the rag, expecting to see Jujin but it was Grace sitting in the chair, with her feet on the bed next to him.

“What an afternoon,” she said, and Billy mustered up a smile for her, he still felt fragile around her, like a hollowed out egg shell.

“So...” she said, unusually hesitant but this is a brave new world for the both of them, folding and unfolding her hands in her lap. “I googled the “other” meaning of “wanting to raw” somebody,” she said slowly and raised her eyebrows at him, deadpan. “Turns out it’s nothing to do with food.”

They stared at each other. Billy wanted to, not die exactly, but expire, cease to exist in this room with immediate effect. Never have to acknowledge in front of his mother that he not only _knows_ the meaning of raw and have considered doing it, with other people, but that his dick has taken active parts in these imaginings too. The corner of his mother’s mouth started to quiver.

“It doesn’t? Billy said, in a last ditch desperate attempt at sounding casual. “ I really wouldn’t know.” 

His mom cracked up so hard she can’t even sit up, like she sometimes laughed with his aunts in Korea, when they had been sitting up talking all night, like she has lost control over her body, just takes off her glasses and folds in on herself, shoulders shaking. 

“Oh my god,” she gasped, over and over. “Your sister is grounded for _life._ We are going to have _so many_ conversations about appropriate language. You must have thought…..” she takes a deep breath, trying to pull herself together.

“If I had known, that it was, that it was that...we would have been so sensitive, and sat down and had like a real family talk…and opened with how much we love you, and not..” her words started to disappear in little snorts of laughter “...and not about how we disapprove of _veganism_,” and then she was laughing so hard she can’t even speak and Billy hides his face behind the wet rag, helpless to at least giggle a little. It was the worst. The stuff of nightmares. The little Korean rainbow flag is sitting on his bedside table, turns out that Pflag had been visiting the local Korean culture centre and given talks about being Asian and gay during the last Pride month, when he had been away at taekwondo camp.

His mom sat up and gathered herself, looking up and breathing deep. “I thought for a moment I was going to have to get divorced.” she said, like its a casual thing, wiping the tears from her eyes and Billy had to sit up so fast it nearly gave him whiplash.

“Oh boy, when your dad got up and walked out, I thought, whoops this is it, 25 years of marriage down the drain.” She put her glasses back on and her eyes found Billys, solemn. “I love Byung-jin but if he couldn’t accept... if I had to choose, if he ever _made_ me choose between him and my kids, you and your sister, then I’m on your side every time.” She reached out and held his hand, hard, like a promise. 

And just like that they were both crying again. 

His parents send him and Jujin down the corner for take away, which was probably a sign of their true emotional exhaustion since Billy could count the number of times his parents have condoned pizza on his two hands. Everyone looked like a bomb had gone off in their faces and Billy felt guilt, like tar down his back. His parents don't have that much time off from work and now they were both looking drawn and pale, not rested and filled with turkey. 

Nobody in the household, except Jujin, seemed to be able to actually say the word “gay” but they were working on it. It was not the worst. In a couple of years he might even feel comfortable enough to introduce them to the concept of “boyfriends”. Like maybe around his 50th birthday or so. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: One person being accidentally outed by somebody else. The reaction is not bad but a person is forced to come out earlier than planned.
> 
> Goody’s grandmother is modelled after the English Queen mother, who was a persistent gambler and rumoured to have started the day with a stiff Gin and Tonic.
> 
> Thank you to Lazaefair who provided me with reading for research of what it can be like to come out in an Asian-American family.
> 
> The parental insistence that there are only three professions: architect, doctor or possibly dentist comes from my own father. That I’m neither of these is probably a disappointment to him (but not as much as when my oldest brother worked as a nightclub DJ for three years instead of going to uni).


	5. Chapter 5

After Christmas the January darkness hangs thick over everything and Billy was getting used to feeling cold and tired all of the time. 

He was sort of avoiding Goody, which was stupid considering they spent nearly the whole Christmas break together on the phone but he can’t help himself. He spent more time at the gym, mindlessly going at the punching bag or doing reps until his body burned and he didn’t have to think anymore. He brought Vasquez to the gym, partially to have a work-out partner, partially because even though Vas has never done martial arts or even boxing he’s a fast learner and it was hilarious to see the guys trying and failing to get inside his ridiculously long guard. 

By the end of the month Billy critically eyed himself in the mirror in the changing room, and supposes he looks a little gaunt. Too little sleep and too much coffee, it’s just that sleep was a risky territory now, bedtime is when Goody walked around in t-shirt and boxers, looking soft and rumpled and sometimes talked softly to Billy from his bed before they turn out the lights, making him laugh about a professor or talking about their day and it made something flutter and squirm so much in Billy’s stomach he lay awake for hours afterwards, staring towards Goody’s bed, trying out the right fit of words to unlock the tangle of emotions he’s feeling.

He’d taken to running in the evenings, the bitter cold burning his lungs and crept into bed late, when Goody was already a sleeping mound under his duvet. It worked pretty well until Goody one evening suggested that he should go with him. 

“Uh, yeah sure?” Billy said, taken aback. He'd not even known Goody was into running before. 

“Have you done this a lot?” he asked when they stood on the pavement, dubiously eyeing Goody's worn out sneakers. 

“No,” Goody answered, “but you know, new year, new you right?” He rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. “You just do what you usually do and I'll try to keep up.”

Two blocks later Goody was bent over, leaning his elbows on his knees and wheezing so hard Billy was genuinely worried he might pass out.

“It's the cigarettes,” Billy explained, patiently patting him on the back. “If you cut down on smoking it will get easier.”

“Oh god, fuck you _and_ your abs for making this look so easy,” Goody wheezed and Billy couldn’t help laughing. 

“I go to the gym a lot,” he said kindly. Goody’s looking goddamn cute in the yellow light from the streetlamps, his messy hair and sweaty his face. One of his shoelaces were undone. They walked after that, their breaths fuming in the cold air, drifting around the dark campus, at first far apart but eventually so close it was easy for Goody knock their elbows together or to swing an arm around Billy’s shoulder. Billy tried his best to ignore that tiny smug voice in the back of his head that pointed out that every time Billy withdrew Goodnight came right back after him. He stopped running or staying at the library late every night after that, and dared himself to sit down and talk to Goodnight. What was the point of having a crush on somebody if you don't ever get to know them anyway? He told himself it was better this way and not like a glass shard working his way into his heart every time he came home to find Goody on the phone with Sam. 

It makes him moody and touchy and it goes so far that Vasquez decided they need to go out with Faraday to one of the student bars and to stop him being “such a morose bastard”. 

“Who knows chaparrito, maybe you’ll even get lucky? That might might make you smile.”

It actually helped, even if only temporarily. Billy has never been much for drinking and both Vasquez and Faraday have a stupidly high tolerance so of course Billy is the one shitfaced by the end of the night. Giggling in Vasquez’s lap, so drunk his head’s spinning and it's comforting to lean into the solid bulwark of Alejandro’s shoulder, leaning his head down against his chest. 

“You're funny, chaparrito,” Vas tells him. “You look like a mean son of a bitch but inside you're all sweet.”

“M not sweet,” Billy laughed. “I'm actually super mean.”

“You're a lightweight,” Faraday said and Billy glared. He liked Faraday considerably less than Vasquez, who smelled nice and looked good with his shirt off (Billy has empirical evidence from ogling him in the gym). Faraday could be loud and annoying and for some reason he didn’t seem to like Goody, which was a surefire way to get on Billy’s bad side.

“It's because you're taller” he said, waving a hand. “More alcohol needed to go around,” (the last was actually part of Goody's favourite rant: _All Tall People are Bastards and step stools are the tools of liberation_) and Vasquez howled with laughter. 

“We should get you home roommate, short stack, before he calls the police.”

When they finally reached Billy's dorm he was sleepy, clinging to Vasquez like a limpet, sniffly and wrapped up against the cold in Vas’ hoodie. They had to more or less pour him over the threshold, only Vas was not exactly sober himself and they fall into the hallway in a complicated tangle of elbows and legs. Billy landed hard on his back on the floor with the long lean heat of Vasquez above him and it's a hysteric mix of painful and funny that set him off laughing again, even as he rubbed the back of his head grimacing in pain. He was futilely trying to elbow Vasquez to get off him but both of them were laughing too much to do anything but sprawl on the floor in a heap.

The commotion called Goody out and he looked at them with a doubtful frown. 

“Guys? Am I being sexiled here?” he asked. “Because its a week night and I know engineering has this no lectures on Thursdays thing but that doesn't mean the rest of us don't…”

Billy heaved Vasquez off him and struggled to sitting, and he can't help the smile that breaks out over his face looking at Goody. He just liked him so much. 

“Hello,” he said dopily and waved his hand, the sleeve of the hoodie flopping around his wrist, his hair in his face and he tried to blow it away. His cheeks hurt from smiling. 

“Christ alive,” Goody sighed and scowls at Vasquez and Faraday. He gave Billy an earful,and was markedly short with him for the rest of the week, vengefully slamming the cupboards and drawers in the morning when Billy woke up sore and hungover. Billy gets the distinct feeling that he has pissed him off but is unsure how. Maybe he felt left out somehow.

It was only a couple of days before Valentine’s when Billy got home to their dorm after his last lecture, a late lab class, and found Goody lying in bed and watching something on his laptop. 

“Billyyyyyyy!” he crooned in delight and waved a hand. “C’m here, c’m here, come here.”

He scooted over in the bed, making room, and patted the blankets enthusiastically.

“What’s up?” Billy asked as he gingerly sat down, on Goodnight’s screen there were people in period clothing saying things which took a very long time. ”Are you drunk?” 

He peered at Goodnight who was happily pulling him down in the bed.

“Mildly tipsy, but it’s a necessity,” he waved a hand regally. “I’m going to introduce you to the worst drinking game in history, because our Early Modern Literature teacher said we had to watch the Ken Brannagh version of Hamlet, as if we didn’t all have to suffer through it _two_ times in high school and Introduction to English lit this year already, and if _I_ have to sit here for four hours and watch a complete butchery of Shakespeare’s vision so do _you_.” He sniffed. “Unless you only get drunk with Vasquez these days.”

The Hamlet drinking game was a terrifying experience, and made even more so by the fact that Goody seemed to make up the rules as he went along. There was a drink for every sex joke and as it turned out pretty much _everything_ is a sex joke.

“That was a vagina joke,c’mon you have to drink.”

Billy took a sip, grimacing at the taste of cheap, bottom shelf whiskey.

“Goody, he literally said “nothing”. How can that _possibly_ be a sex joke?”

They also have to drink every time somebody says “my lord” (which was _all the time_), for when somebody died off screen (again, surprisingly frequent) and when somebody has a soliloqy, and even though Billy came in about halfway through, there are still two fucking hours left of this nonsense and it wasn’t long before Billy was so tipsy he had bonlessly slumped down into the bed next to Goody.

They were lying face to face in Goody’s narrow bed, the laptop between them and their legs tangled. It was so close Billy had to curl a hand around Goody's shoulder just to keep his balance. At least that's what he told himself. Strictly necessary contact. Its small and cosy and Billy felt like they are the only two people in the world, nothing existing outside their little haven of blankets. On screen the Shakespearean English is a soothing murmur, rising and falling like the sea, crashing in long complicated cascades. 

“I came out to my parents,” Billy says, entirely apropos nothing. 

Goody blinked drunkenly. “Oh, thats, that’s something. Uh,good on you, how did they take it?”

Billy started telling the story, awkwardly starting with “I uh, told my sister I had a crush, on uh, heh ah, a...a boy at college”, before getting into it, and finally Goody was curled up and laughing so hard he had to wipe tears away from his eyes. 

“That was the worst,” he keened and while Billy was still a little too terrified by the whole thing to laugh it felt good to make Goody laugh. That it could be something that's funny, later when he’s older, rather than a moment when he wished he could die. 

“I came out to my parents in high school,” Goody said and Billy sort of stiffens. Goody has never really openly alluded to being gay, it just, just always seemed obvious. Something he didn't need to tell people because it was so natural. Just like he doesn’t talk about his relationship with Sam all that often.

“”Came out” is a strong word, apparently I'd been saying that I was going to marry Prince Caspian in the Narnia books since I was five so it really wasn't too much of a surprise. My mama actually said ‘yeah, no shit Goodnight’ when I told her but there was um, a lot of other things going on at the time.” 

“How are they with it?” Billy asked and Goody twisted his mouth, pondering.

“Oh there are fine. Ish. I guess? They prefer not to talk about it, it's like I'm this weirdass monk in my family who doesn't have a romantic life and are never expected to bring a partner anywhere, but like I said, there were a lot of other things to deal with for them at the time.”

“Like what?”

“I uh, I got really ill senior year in high school. Sam tells the story of all the fishes in my yearbook but that's because nobody really knew what to write because I wasn't there the three last months. I got mono, and if your unlucky it gives you chronic fatigue. I was really lucky that I could do my final courses from home..and then I mean, I'm doing first year in college for the second time now. The first time I dropped out because I was too tired all the time. I slept 14 hours a day” he laughed self deprecating. “So here I am trying again. More humanities this time.” He winked at Billy. 

“Wow,” Billy says. “That's, yeah, I guess I just thought you took a gap year or something.”

Goody snorted, “Yeah a two year gap year, one spent sleeping and the second assuring my parents that I wasn't going to keel over if they let me out of their sight. I didn't tell them I had mono until I got really ill, because I didn't want to tell them I got it from a boy…so you kind of see why they thought it was the least of the problem.” He rolls his eyes “After they had stopped freaking out about HIV”. 

“Really?”

“Hey, I was young and I was gay and I had a mysterious illness. Also I was too embarrassed to tell them I’d never done anything with anybody and that I got mono from the first guy I ever kissed.”

Billy snickered. “That's maximum bad luck,” he agreed. “My mom, she gave me like this black bag of shame when I left after Christmas, with like pharmacy brand lube and condoms, like they are worried I'm having these wild orgies and I've never even held hands with a boy.” 

They had curled close, almost forehead to forehead and Billy could feel Goody's breath like warm puffs on his mouth whenever he spoke. It was almost like kisses. Goody's smile was soft and warm and almost bashful as he looked down and slowly reached out, taking a hold of Billy's hand and threading their fingers together so they are laced up palm to palm, thumbs resting on top of each other.

“There you go,” he smiled at Billy. “Now you have.”

“Have what?” Billy said thickly, unable to tear his gaze away, Goodnight's hands were soft and warm. They feel large and safe where Billy’s own hands are cold and clammy and no doubt the grossest hand Goody's ever held. But still, they were holding hands. Billy's heart was beating an elated and jumbled rhythm. He never wanted to let go. 

“Held hands with a boy,” Goody said softly, traces of a smile around his mouth

“Yeah,” Billy breathed, unable to raise his voice above a whisper in case somehow it broke the spell, his mouth feel slow, like molasses. “That's like what? First base in little league? It'll be orgies next.”

It was worth it to see Goodnight laugh, and Billy squeezes his hand, because he wanted to, because now he can. They were quiet for a while, Billy still staring at their hands, his darker skin against Goody's white, almost yellow, skin. It looked good. It feels even better. 

“So,uh, who’s the guy?” Goody asked, shaking their hands together a little.

“Um, who?” Billy said a little dazed, still hung up on their interlinked fingers. 

“Um,who’s your crush?”

It caught Billy completely off guard. He had been staring at Goodys blue eyes and slightly crooked teeth and also he had somehow thought that Goodnight just knew? It struck in him that now is the moment, he has to say you and Goody will smile soft and regretfully and say yeah I figured as much, and Billy will say something mature and they will smile a little awkwardly about it and the next time Sam comes to visit he'll punch Billy jokingly in the arm and say hey, I heard you're after my guy and they will laugh about it and it will be out there, defanged and harmless, an inside joke for the three of them and he's not ready. It's still too close, too fragile and precious. His love for Goodnight is like a glass flower, too beautiful to be handled like an everyday object. He can't laugh about it. Not now. Maybe in a long time to come when they are old friends meeting up he can tell Goody without much more than a shrug. But. Not. Now. 

Long story short, Billy panicked. And when Billy panics, however cool-headed and stoic as he was otherwise, when he panics he's an idiot. He stares at Goodnight, heart like a hummingbird and cold sweat breaking out all over. 

“Uh, um, Vasquez,” he blurts, the first name that comes to his tongue. And then he kicks himself mentally because he is an idiot. Oh god, he's such and idiot. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chaparrito means shorty, or short one.
> 
> Sir Kenneth Branaghs version of Hamlet is 4 hrs and 30 min and contains the full text of Hamlet. It is almost universally agreed that Shakespeare never put on the play in its full length but instead had different revisions the text as having a four hour play in front of a standing audience with ample access to projectiles and no shyness about expressing their views is not a good idea. 
> 
> The “nothing” line in the Hamlet Ophelia exchange is a reference to the void, i.e the elizabethan view of vaginas and is therefore very much a sex joke. Suck it up Billy.
> 
> I’m sorry about Billy, it was a perfect moment, those come with a lot of pressure.


End file.
